No More Toll Roads

The National Motorist Association does not support toll roads or user fees intended to limit or ration the use of public roads. Not only are tolls an inefficient and backwards approach to providing funding for transportation, they foster corruption and political patronage. When states rely on tolls to build and maintain one stretch of highway, it discourages improvements on the rest of the transportation system.

Tolls are Expensive in more Ways than One

Tolls are essentially a regressive tax and if it is owned or leased by a private company built with partial public funds, the private company expects to make a profit and the toll road only benefits the rich and not everyone else.

Also, all states and the federal government have a gas tax which if used for road transportation funding should be more than adequate to cover the costs. Unfortunately, the gas tax is frequently raided for other state budget projects. If a toll is put in place, will the toll funds raised be used for the road traveled on or for some other program that has nothing to do with roads or even infrastructure?

Transportation as a System

When you look at an overall transportation corridor, the goal is to move people and goods as smoothly, quickly and safely as possible. When a toll is introduced, the system becomes out of whack for two reasons: one road is funded by tolls, the alternative route is not and it now has to endure more traffic from those who want to avoid the tolls. Especially if trucks avoid toll roads which are made for them and instead find alternative routes, this increases traffic issues and road wear and tear because the alternative routes were not necessarily made to handle such a heavy load.

Toll Roads—A Monopoly

Sanctioned and protected by the state but built with private money or even a public private partnership or PPP, a toll road pushes out realistic alternatives for moving people and goods. Highway users (or customers) have little influence on management and pricing of the toll road. Due to funding issues, improvements to non-toll alternatives are viewed as competing with the toll road and likely ignored. Instead, these non-toll roads have more congestion, under posted speed limits, more traffic accidents and many times, traffic enforcement that is questionable.

Invasion of Privacy

Today, toll collection invades our privacy by tracking where we’ve been and how much it costs through transponders or automated license plate readers. Will this invasion eventually limit where we can go when we want to go?

HOT lanes is one form of congestion pricing which is utilized primarily by cities to charge motorists with more fees if the streets or roads are in peak demand.

The most heinous part of tolling is that motorists already pay for roads through the gas tax and we also pay for roads by paying higher prices on goods and services due to the gas tax. Then motorists will still have to pay yet another toll or tax to use the road? What if the money raised for this toll or regressive tax isn’t even used to maintain the road we are using?

The opinions expressed in posts to the NMA Blog belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of the National Motorists Association. The content of the NMA Blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No representations are made regarding the accuracy of NMA Blog posts or of links found within those posts.

Collecting fuel taxes and transmitting them to state & federal authorities costs about 1% of the amount collected. Collecting and transmitting toll fees costs 10% to 20% of the amount collected. On this basis alone, tolls should be rejected as too expensive to utilize compared to fuel taxes.